Researchers are treating tadpoles in Kings Canyon National Park with a bacteria they hope will provide immunity to an infamous fungal disease, reports the San Francisco Gate. The bacteria could be key not only to saving California’s mountain yellow-legged frog (Rana muscosa), which is listed as Endangered by the IUCN Red List, but also frog species around the planet, many of which have been decimated by the chytrid fungal disease.
Scientists are pouring the anti-fungal bacterium, known as Janthinobacterium lividum, into high altitude lakes where the mountain yellow-legged frogs and their tadpoles live. Researchers with San Francisco State University have already treated some populations of mountain yellow-legged frogs with the bacterium and will be checking up on these populations while dosing new ones.
Mountain yellow-legged frog. Photo by: Chris Brown, USGS. |
The bacterium was first discovered on the the red-backed salamander, and is believed to have provided that amphibian with protection against the chytrid fungus. The disease, also called chytridiomycosis, hinders the flow of sodium and other electrolytes across the frog’s skin, resulting in heart failure.
The disease is believed to be responsible for a number of extinctions of amphibians in recent decades. At least 120 amphibians have gone extinct in the last 30 years, while 41 percent of the world’s 7,000 known amphibians are considered threatened by the IUCN.
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